Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, is situated in Oceania which is controlled by Big Brother who is the leader of the Party. It is a totalitarian state where thoughts are illegal. Winston is the main character of the book and despises the Party completely. He soon falls in love with Julia who also hates the Party. But will their hatred against the society they reside in be strong enough to abolish the totalitarian system in Oceania?

These two characters contradict each other in several different ways such as they are complete opposites in appearance, they have contrastive thoughts, and they revolt against Big Brother extremely differently. The first item we can note effortlessly when we read the novel is the physical difference between Winston and Julia. In the first chapter we have a vivid description of Winston when enters the Victory Mansions. “The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way” (Page 3).

From this fragment we can conclude that he seems to have health problems, we also learn about his age. Later on we also receive the knowledge that he has a constant cough, he has a thin body and is frail. The obvious differences between Winston and Julia are that Julia is young, energetic, healthy, beautiful and confident. After the couple meets a few times, Julia seems to exert youthfulness into Winston. “The smell of her hair, the taste her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him.

She had become a physical necessity… ” (Page 146). Even though they are physically different they still devoted to one another. The second reason why Winston and Julia are so unlike is because they have different thoughts about certain events that happen during their lives. Winston enters his relationship with Julia because it breaks the rules of the Party. “Their embrace had been a battle, the climax of victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act” (Page 133).

Julia on the other hand is involved with him because she is attracted to Winston sexually. Another example of their how they differentiate is that throughout the whole novel, Winston lurks as if he is being watched unlike Julia who can roam without suspicion because she is so involved with the Party. Julia has also not lived long before Big Brother took over Oceania so she does not remember much about the past. Winston’s mind revolves around the past, as he keeps in mind memories of his mother, songs and how Oceania used to be before the Party.

“He remembered his mother’s statuesque body bending over the gas ring to stir at something in a saucepan. Above all he remembered his continuous hunger, and the fierce sordid battles at mealtimes” (Page 169). He would sacrifice his life to get freedom in his country whereas Julia pays no attention to anything but herself. She thinks that Winston’s idea of the proles forming a rebellion against the party is absurd. Their minds take in the surroundings around them in very dissimilar ways.